Judy Blume Forever

This was great. Not because filmmakers reinvented the documentary wheel. All that stuff is pretty conventional. Interviews with best-selling author. Interviews with famous people. Etcetera. But there’s a running thread through this - people go up to Judy Blume when she’s in her bookstore or out for walks, often in tears, thanking her for learning about their bodies or accepting that sex and masturbation are okay. These moments are incredibly poignant and illustrate how important she is to the culture, after being banned and/or being relegated to the teen/YA category. School was always trying to cram Nathaniel Hawthorne down our throats, and Blume was assuredly much more influential to us. The best, so far, of many documentaries I’ve seen this year.

King of Kings: Chasing Edward Jones

In old movies, sometimes a character would mention that they were, “Playing the numbers.” I guess I never understood what that actually meant. But before the legal lottery, there was an illegal game run by gangsters called “Policy”, and Edward Jones was the king in Chicago. This doc checks the first and most important doc box, which is to teach me about something that I never knew. Filmmakers lacked visuals for some of the story and relied on mediocre animation. I can understand you gotta do what you gotta due to tell the story - there aren’t going to be old photos of gangland assassinations, etc. But something needs to be on screen. Eddie Jones opted to flee Chicago rather than get whacked by Sam Giancana and the mob. His kids and grandkids are still around to tell his story.

Devil Put the Coal in the Ground

Interview-heavy doc about a coal town wasting away. Injuries, death, pollution, opiate addictions, and lies and trickery from big coal fill-out this depressing but heart-felt portrait of a bygone fuel and the people who dedicated their lives to it.

Stop Making Sense

I can’t explain how cool it was in high school when David Byrne walks out onto an empty stage with a boombox, presses play, and starts the concert to the basic rhythm track. The scope of the show grew with every number until the big band is blowing the top off of the universe. Seeing it in IMAX is especially profound, watching the instrumentation in detail. A lot of luck factors into this movie. A soon-to-be-elite filmmaker and documentarian, a progressive band in their absolute prime (and still presumably getting along), and a theater full of fans realizing throughout the show they’re witnessing something historic. As of now this movie has 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. There’s no question why. It is the phenomenal version of its type of thing.